Logility Voyager Solutions V8 Streamlines the Complexity of Today’s Global Supply Chains
Latest Version Provides the Most Comprehensive Supply Chain Management Platform Available to Mid-Size and Fortune 1000 Enterprises
ATLANTA (July 27, 2010) – Logility Inc., a leading supplier of collaborative solutions to optimize the supply chain, today announced the general availability of Logility Voyager Solutions(TM) V8. The latest release provides significant enhancements that enable distribution-intensive companies to more strategically evaluate, optimize and manage the growing complexity of today’s global supply chains while simultaneously reducing costs and boosting customer service.
According to research from Gartner, the top three supply chain priorities for supply chain professionals and executives in 2010 are to 1) increase efficiency and/or productivity, 2) reduce operating costs and 3) improve customer service.1 As the business environment evolves, companies must remain flexible and have access to the right solutions to proactively adapt operations to meet changing customer needs and cost-effectively satisfy their priorities. The Logility Voyager Solutions V8 enables better decision-making to ensure companies increase visibility, optimize supply chain operations and meet corporate objectives.
“Our global sales and operations planning (S&OP) process relies on the ability to have visibility into every aspect of our supply chain operations,” said Bob McAdoo, Vice President of Business Systems, Parker Hannifin. “Logility Voyager Solutions’ features and industry expertise have helped us understand the factors that impact our supply chain and plan more effectively. The new features will accelerate new user adoption and will be used as a key element of the Parker Hannifin S&OP process being deployed to our global operations. Also, the intuitive user interface and web design of version 8 accelerates our “what-if” analysis and streamlines our ability to evaluate a variety of planning scenarios.”
As a result of the challenging global economy, many companies have dramatically reduced inventories and continued to struggle with dynamic swings in demand. This approach has led to lower service levels, inefficient placement of inventory and millions of dollars in trapped working capital. Additionally, much of the workforce has been asked to increase its productivity in areas such as managing broader product groups, additional distribution channels and key customer service goals. The added responsibility requires performance-based monitoring to help focus the workforce on high-priority supply chain issues. Logility Voyager Solutions V8 accelerates employee response and enables them to be more strategic in the use of their time.
“As more companies seek to decrease costs and leverage global suppliers and manufacturing partners, the task of managing the supply chain grows exponentially with each partner,” said Mike Edenfield, president and CEO, Logility. “In order to keep pace and gain much needed visibility, companies need the comprehensive supply chain capabilities available with Logility Voyager Solutions V8. This is a content-rich release that underscores our continued commitment to providing robust and innovative solutions that deploy quickly and provide a rapid return on investment for today’s most complex networks.”
Logility Voyager Solutions V8 is a robust supply chain management suite built on a performance management architecture to increase supply chain visibility and productivity in key areas including sales and operations planning (S&OP), demand planning, manufacturing planning and scheduling, supply and inventory optimization, transportation planning and management, and warehouse management. Some of the unique enhancements in Logility Voyager Solutions V8 include:
Collaborative Planning
Logility Voyager Solutions V8 provides unparalleled access and visibility to data across the enterprise and beyond the four walls. Delivering more alerts, actionable insights and availability of partner and supplier information, companies are able to strategically cooperate with trading partners to gain real supply chain efficiency and drive down costs while improving customer service. V8 helps companies more accurately forecast demand and plan for the ups and downs of the economy through the suite’s increased flexibility and analysis with more than 100 new planning arrays. Additionally, companies can better understand and identify how the supply chain is performing through built-in performance management capabilities. This information helps supply chain planners and managers strategically allocate resources where they can add more value.
Demand Optimization
The lifespan for many products continues to shrink as technology evolves at an ever increasing pace and consumers jump from trend to trend. Logility Voyager Solutions V8 provides companies the ability to accurately forecast the impact of new product introductions on the supply chain as well as how best to plan for product phase-out. Logility Voyager Solutions’ attribute-based demand modeling capabilities enable companies to accurately forecast demand of new, short-life or seasonal, and end-of life products. Additionally, Logility Voyager Demand Planning provides clear visibility into how demand patterns will impact the entire supply chain. Combined with Logility Voyager Inventory Optimization, companies are better equipped to develop and manage a truly strategic and profit driven supply chain.
Inventory Optimization
As companies align inventories for the current economic conditions it is imperative to develop a strategic and flexible growth plan that looks across the supply chain to identify when to adjust inventory levels and at which stage. Companies can no longer afford to simply employ blanket inventory policies that increase or lower inventory across the board or focus optimization efforts on only finished goods. By right-sizing the inventory through service level optimization across all stages of the supply chain
Logility Voyager Solutions now offers the most comprehensive inventory optimization solution available as part of a full supply chain management suite. Voyager Inventory Optimization, now available as part of the Logility Voyager Solutions V8 suite or as a stand-alone solution, enables companies to perform multi-echelon inventory optimization (MEIO) across the entire supply chain to identify and free millions of dollars trapped in working capital. Voyager Inventory Optimization provides both strategic and tactical optimization capabilities that help planners flexibly manage inventory on a weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly basis.
Supply Optimization
Logility Voyager Solutions V8 brings new supply planning capabilities including a buyer’s workbench, which provides a comprehensive dashboard for wholesale distributors to accelerate and streamline supplier selection and management from a single interface. The solution optimizes purchase plans and aggregates information from every supplier to deliver visibility into historical purchases. V8 also delivers procurement optimization which helps companies develop strategic purchase plans that balance the trade-off of buying versus the additional carrying costs and risks of excess and obsolete inventory. For example, this new capability in V8 allows customers to identify the cost-effective price point to buy additional products at a lower cost. Companies can also optimize their tiered pricing plans to reduce acquisition and carrying costs.
In addition, stochastic models anticipate the timing of intermittent demand for slow moving products. Where companies have historically struggled to plan for lumpy and low demand products, the stochastic techniques in Logility Voyager Solutions V8 are able to determine the probability of demand happening within the lead time. This ability provides improved planning which leads to reduced inventories and increased customer service.
Optimized Production Planning
Logility Voyager Manufacturing Planning provides further analytics capabilities with the release of V8 including enhanced capacity utilization which highlights specific equipment utilization, identifies bottleneck resources and the impact of changeovers on overall capacities. The solution provides access to more information across the enterprise to create long-range capacity plans, tactical production schedules and operational work center schedules to effectively meet service targets. Increased visibility, scenario assessment and deeper analytics help create optimal production plans and track plan goals to actual execution.
Sales and Operations Planning
The S&OP meeting is a critically important, high-level decision-making activity that sets the overall direction for the company. Logility Voyager Solutions V8 simplifies the process of bringing together the relevant data required from sales, marketing, materials/procurement, manufacturing, transportation, and finance. Logility Voyager Solutions V8 delivers comprehensive, web-based views that integrate data from across the enterprise to provide actionable insight. Through a central warehouse of information, V8 synchronizes all of the information to ensure the company works from and plans based on one, accurate and up-to-date number.
Transportation and Logistics Optimization
Logility Voyager Transportation Planning and Management provides a new vendor portal in Logility Voyager Solutions V8 with on-demand routing and seamless electronic submission of automatic ship notice data to accelerate collaboration with suppliers. The solution delivers optimized shipment planning, bill of lading, and inquiries including shipment tracking and simulations. The solution delivers the ability to compare actual execution to plan and identify where deviation occurs, and send alerts in real-time to mitigate the potential for issues to cascade down the line.
About Logility
With more than 1,250 customers worldwide, Logility is a leading provider of collaborative, best-of-breed supply chain solutions that help small, medium, large and Fortune 1000 companies realize substantial bottom-line results in record time. Logility Voyager Solutions is a complete supply chain management solution that features a performance monitoring architecture and provides supply chain visibility; demand, inventory and replenishment planning; Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP); inventory and supply optimization; manufacturing planning and scheduling; transportation planning and management; and warehouse management. Logility customers include McCain Foods, Pernod Ricard, Sigma Aldrich, and VF Corporation. Logility is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMSWA). For more information about Logility, call 1-800-762-5207 or visit www.logility.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by statements made herein. These factors include, but are not limited to, changes in general economic conditions, technology and the market for Logility’s (the Company) products and services including economic conditions within the e-commerce markets; the timely availability and market acceptance of these products and services; the effect of competitive products and pricing; the uncertainty of the viability and effectiveness of strategic alliances; and the irregular pattern of the Company’s revenues. For further information about risks the Company and American Software could experience as well as other information, please refer to American Software, Inc’s. Form 10-K for the year ended April 30, 2010 and other reports and documents subsequently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more information about risks the Company could face as well as other information, contact Vincent C. Klinges, Chief Financial Officer, Logility, Inc., 470 East Paces Ferry Rd., Atlanta, GA 30305, (404) 261-9777. FAX: (404) 264-5206 INTERNET:
1 “Key Issues for SCM IT Leaders,” Gartner, April 2010
Contact
Logility
Justin Siefert, 404-264-5485
jsiefert@logility.com
Source: Logility
